The duplicate letter logic is what actually trips people up here.
Start by clarifying requirements and edge cases, then outline the core algorithm for evaluating guesses with duplicate letters. Structure your answer around component design, state management, and the evaluation logic, emphasizing correctness and trade-offs. Conclude by discussing testing and potential optimizations.
Pro tip: Demonstrate awareness of the two-pass algorithm for duplicate letters and mention how you'd test it with cases like 'SPEED' vs 'ERASE'. Also, discuss how you'd handle state updates efficiently in React to avoid unnecessary re-renders.
Ask about word list source, whether guesses must be valid words, and how to handle duplicate letters. Confirm UI expectations like keyboard input and feedback display.
Outline components: GameBoard, Row, Tile, Keyboard. Define state: secret word, guesses array, current guess, game status. Discuss using React state or context for shared state.
Explain the two-pass approach: first mark correct positions, then handle remaining letters with a frequency map to mark wrong positions and absent letters. This ensures duplicates are handled correctly.
Describe how to process submissions, update state, and render feedback. Discuss disabling input after game over and showing win/loss messages.
Mention unit tests for the evaluation function with edge cases. Discuss trade-offs like using a set for valid words vs. array, and performance considerations for large word lists.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.